


An Offering of Reflections on the Ninth Satrapy War, by Tamo Pamarado, or, How We Whupped 'Em by Valda Mishnov

by Zoya1416



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Bad Poetry, Cetaganda versus Barrayar society, Cheating boyfriends, Gen, Homework, Vicious 12 year old girls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-01-14 17:40:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1275199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emperor Gregor Vorbarra and Emperor Fletchir Giaja want to improve relationships between Barrayar and Cetaganda.</p><p>NEW CHAPTERS 8, 9, and 10 UP 6/29/2014<br/>This combines two previous works. "Offerings of letters" Tamo Pamarado and Valda Mishnov has been added to the end of "Offerings of Reflections--Tamo and Valda," and then new material begins after chapter 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Offering of Reflections, from Tamo Pamarado (Rho Ceta)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Texts Presented To The Emperor The Haut Fletchir Giaja, May He Reign Forever, On The Occasion Of His Visit To Sergyar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28592) by [Ankaret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ankaret/pseuds/Ankaret). 



> Vorkosigan is all LMB's. The girls say they don't belong to anybody.
> 
> There is one f-word used in Chapter 3, but I believe it is necessary.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miles' first attempt for decreasing tension is an essay contest about the Cetagandan War, from each side, between twelve year old children from each empire. These are the winning essays. Correspondence follows.
> 
> Cetagandans use poetic constructions and passive whenever possible.

The Cetagandan essay has had most of the lengthy poetry removed, for shortness. Likewise, the Barrayaran essay has had most spelling and grammar errors removed to render a back-country essay consistent with an urban one.

From: Tamo Pamarado, Ghem family Anah  
1st Form  
Esfahani Installation Pupillar  
Katsura, Rho Ceta

To: Instructor Mir Lahani

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT THE NINTH SATRAPY WAR

“The ilex and the laurel of the mountains  
Infuse beauty to us  
Confusion and pain to others  
Red berries like blood  
Presented as ritual ordeals"

(note to self—I rather wish that I had some Ilex vomitoria to give treacherous Seiji)

 

GOALS IN NINTH SATRAPY WAR

AT THE FIRST INSTANCE:  
Fifty million primitive, illiterate slaves terraforming an Earth-type planet was a ripe peach to be taken eagerly. A Ninth Satrapy would extend Categanda's sphere of control in the local Nexus, and add to the Emperor's glory.

"Constellations stand  
Child-ships from Eta Ceta  
Nova patterned Ghem"

(note to self—sloppy haiku—rewrite) 

AT THE SECOND INSTANCE:  
The haut desired the genomes of all. The initial 50,000 colonists, the “Firsters.” (and I hope he allows that crude term because it is what they called themselves) were lost to galactic intercourse for several hundred years. The fifty million present at the initiation of the war were created by indiscriminate mating of these 50,000. All children during the Years of Isolation, and the majority today, were body-births from a single mated pair. 

(again in quiet, silence, I beg forgiveness—this was their crudity)

The mate pair would unite in spoken rituals, standing in grain designs, which have a certain primitive echo to the child-ship constellation formations. The fertility of life-linked pairs, however, was not determined before mating. The parents of one contractant would visually inspect the other on the day of the ceremony, looking for any visible deformities. ( laughter of scorn)

This pair were then legally able to propagate as many children as possible. They were legally bound not to produce children with others, and any child known to be produced outside the mate-pair was severely ostracized and could not share in family wealth. They could not participate freely in the rituals of the society and might even be killed in infancy. And all this because of primal urges to improve their genetics!

(Reflective silence performed to regain control over anger, per custom—although I STILL think this ritualized shaming and shunning is one of their worst traditions.)

The wild-type interbreeding intensified recessive genes enormously. When these inbred peoples produced physically deformed children, they performed the only genome cleansing available to them—infanticide by ritual throat slaying. The effectiveness of this barbaric ritual is small, because they had no understanding of recessives in genetics. The “Firsters” science vanished in the lost centuries.

AT THE THIRD INSTANCE:

The haut desired the xeno biology of this unknown planet. Preliminary covert activity determined that the biota was fiercely and vigorously defensive. Multiple injurious chemicals were suspected, chemicals which would extend our bioweapons.

(I wish I had some bioweapons. Seiji gave another poem to Xochitl today.)

CETAGANDA DECLARED A VICTORY AND REMOVED ITS TROOPS

The haut received some samples of the genomes, not the majority desired. They obtained biota to create some weapons, and prepare the soldiers. However, despite twenty years of conflict, and the loss of half a million brave ghem, conquest of the planet was denied. 

SHORTCOMINGS—OBSERVATIONS FOR REFLECTION

(Replace with scholar's passive form later. More important to punish Seiji now. Keiko and Tabor agree with me.)

Eta Ceta didn't understand the planet or the raw viciousness of its people. The guerillas quickly retreated to secure outposts in the Dedary(is that spelled right?) Mountains. They could hold one ridge with lower potency weapons, then slip back to another on the side as we gained the first. The ghem were enticed into following the guerillas into caves where they had no control of the paths.

Everyone knows modern warfare is galactic and space-based! The Barrayarans were saved by their very primitiveness. No spaceships—until they stole ours. No spaceport—until we built one to land supplies. No powered weapons—again, they stole from us like curious Marilaccan monkeys. No rail systems outside the largest cities. And we kept giving them what we had.

They fought like savages from the dawns of time! (Must write in passive voice on re-write.)

They threw stones, felled our troops with “slingshots.” --had to search to find what those were, and I still don't understand why that would kill people—(a simple experiment presents itself—right in the forehead, Seiji. It can't be that difficult if the savages used it.)

We couldn't march on them because there were no fields to march. Where there were fields, they prepared pits, traps, lethally armed with sharpened sticks. And if reports aren't lying, they poisoned the spikes with—no, Instructor Lahani isn't going to let me write this.During the last years of the war, our supply lines failed. They had developed (stole, stole again!) methods of destroying ships, and our ghem began to suffer shortages.

AT THE FOURTH INSTANCE:

The last, and possibly the greatest, reason that the war failed was the viciousness of the planet itself. 

The brave ghem were given the most sophisticated internal bio-protection modules. They had been prepared with the biota samples, or manufactured on planet when possible. Everything should have gone well, but the biota was far more sophisticated than the people. I have the second order constellation's progenitor's actual botany journals and I will append them—mostly very sad, gruesome reading. The plants used did not correspond to actual planetary conditions in many ways. An innocuous plant in the spring might be violently protective in later seasons. 

Example: (local names given)--Love--lies--itching is a soft red groundcover, with a velvet texture. The plant tempts you to lie in it, he said. But if you do, there are minute, barbed seed pods which catch easily to catch on skin and clothes and are horrible to remove. Our brave ghem, trying to rest in the sun, acquired these hooks, (will Instructor allow me to include)—they stripped, as is custom—the rest can be surmised. We plasma arced the village which had failed to warn us, and good riddance to beasts, I say.

When repeated routine washing failed to remove the hooks, local men were interrogated. Even though some died under interrogation, they would not give the answer. Finally it was realized that only the women knew how, and it was a closely held laundry secret even then—a woman who could get rid of love-lies-itching had a much greater chance of getting a husband. Of course, a man stupid enough to be caught lying down on the plant probably didn't deserve a wife. Chemical softeners did the same thing, when they finally found out. Love-lies-itching, he said, was the reason that the hill people had two changes of clothes. Some people had no change of clothes AT ALL! (Two! And no real cleansers. The smell must have been atrocious—how did they stand to be close enough to breed, anyway?) 

Many other plants simply weren't caught in surveys.  
Bloody Puffweed is another example—it looks harmless and is very similar to innocent weeds. But if it brushes bare skin, in a few hours there will be painful deep purple bruises, which linger. This plant alone is responsible for what appear to be overly modest customs. Even in the heat of midsummer hill-folk will not disrobe. It might make you smell a little better to get those clothes off, you perverts!

(Reflection. Much silence. Tea.)

These hill-folk often have shoes and socks, again more so than others. Do you think they warned us? It's not like it was a huge war secret. When our brave first ghem learned about these another couple of villages pfft.

My constellation progenitor complained about the haut (MUST, MUST rephrase) because they didn't find slow-growing plants, those which didn't even fruit every year. And even after all those chemical reactors, he said, which kept them in sneezing, coughing misery (I hope my poetry is up to this) everything on Barrayar stung, stabbed, itched, or irritated sensitive areas.

I must beg Instructor Lahani to let me include this last one. Surely we are not so evolved that humor has no place. There is a plant called stink-lichen. It is a faint orange, and slow-growing. It follows cracks in rocks rather than advancing across them, and is very hard to see. They found out later that seemingly random scratches in the rocks were the locals' way of keeping away from these rocks. Not able to flame villages because they lived in actual caves, but interrogated them for translations. Honestly, it would have been easier to keep a couple of beasts with us for this type of thing. It wasn't good for the plasma arcs in the end. 

(Silence. Exorcise passion even in exterminating, they say. Preserves balance mind-body-spirit. Probably would have prevented so much drinking in the ghem who fought.) (Tamo Pamarado, you stop it right now! They are much honored, even though they are broken, as one collects the pieces of a three hundred year old teapot).

The small rude lichen  
Bearing crotyl mercaptan  
Repels all who touch

It apparently smells like a skink? Skunk? (Is that right?), the odor is violently nauseating, and lasts for weeks. 

(Seiji, if you write to Xochitl again, I will create some).

 

Fetid odor for  
Year mate boy who deceived me  
Promising me songs

(And favor for Tabor has paid off. New aromatic jewelry for her succeeded.) She showed me parallels of the Ninth Satrapy War with old Earth history.  
One small, weak Satrapy won a war with a much larger one by hiding in trees, using camouflage.Then the SAME Satrapy, when it had grown old and powerful, lost TWO wars to smaller, weaker ones. One was in a jungle country. Really, I do not understand this loss. The larger, older, Satrapy used violently poisonous chemicals at random to get rid of foliage so they could see their enemy. But Tabor showed me other files:

(would she like a real flowering bracelet?—stays flowering forever—it could be a surprise or she could choose the flowers. And I have a new poem:

One who helps me plan  
One who helps in secrecy  
Gold friend in light  
In shade  
In soft air  
In bright cool rain  
Bright morning glory  
Triumphantly  
Heaven scent  
Rainbow  
Eyes

 

The Satrapy was SO CLOSE to the perfect answer. They already had a functioning bomb which would kill all the people and leave structures standing. WHY DIDN'T THEY USE IT?There is no understanding some races. The other was in a mountainous Satrapy very like the Dendariis, WHICH HAD ALREADY DEFEATED TWO OTHER VERY LARGE SATRAPIES in the same way. In rewrite—to show intensity by infusing orange spice at beginnings. Or maybe rue, for remembrance?)

TO CONCLUDE:

Unthinkable and unlikely as it may be--(no)

Even though we had much better weapons-- (no)

Poetry is always best:

With power before me may I walk  
With power behind me may I walk  
With power above me may I walk  
With power, strength, biotics, nuclears all around me,  
Did I walk.

But the dirt  
The poison dirt  
Burned our mouths and eyes  
The peasant beasts of burden  
Stole the secret of fire  
Threw it back to us  
Breaking our bones  
Not spirit  
Violet engendered wind  
Rising to meet them  
Will bring new words  
You will die  
With your  
Sons

Not quite the right meter and not enough senses, but I think a good start

(Creche-monitor caught me making crotyl mercaptan—much stronger odor than I had expected. I offered her my ritual suicide, but she refused to accept it, saying that immature persons and recessives were not allowed to offer this, and I appeared to be both. She still doesn't know about the slingshot, though.)


	2. We Whupped Them Good (Valda Mishnov, Dendarii Mountains, Barrayar)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valda Mishnov also has an assignment about the Cetagandan War

Valda Mishnov  
6th grade  
Raina Czurik Primary School  
Teacher, Mina Deodov

Everybody knows about the Cetagandan War. We beat them. It took twenty years.

What else am I supposed to write? Miss Deodov says I need to study more, to be able to go to more school in Hassadar. But I don't want to go to Hassadar. It's too big—I'll get lost.  
(Valda Mishnov! Here you are writing about the Cetagandan War and how brave they were, and you're getting afraid of nothing! Be angry but don't be skerred.)

 

AT THE BEGINNING, THEN

We were colonized from Earth, good colonists with all proper ships, through a wormhole. Then the wormhole collapsed and we were lost for several hunderd years.

(I've always wondered what it would have been like in the Age of Isolation. Yuliah says everyone had horses, they had pretty clothes, and they all lived in big castles, and the men were always fighting for the ladies. I told her if there were men fighting for ladies it wouldn't be pretty. Also, I'm pretty sure that if there were horses, they'd need somebody to pick up the horse sh—Miss Deodov says I can't say that. Well, to pick up horse apples then.)

 

Then we were found again. By scout-ships from Komarr. And everything was going to be better, and “We're all going to have pretty clothes! And live in castles in Space.”

That's my idea about what people thought, anyway. They thought that space people were going to be better and nicer and kinder to us than anybody had ever been before, because we were small and weak and they were big and strong. Kind of like the way city people are now when they come to the mountains, isn't that right? How nice they are, and how they never say we stink, and how they never say we're stupid because we can't read and write, aint I right? AREN'T I right?

But we're smart enough not to sunbathe on love-lies-itching, aren't we? I saw a boy; actually someone from the big City, Vorbarr Sultana (and why was he down here, anyway? He wasn't from Count Vorkosigan's armsmen, unless he grew up in another District, because I know all of them. And they know better.)

Well, this high and mighty boy thinks—oh, right, his father was down here to see if the old Count Vorkosigan-who-was still had any good horses up here—he wanted to buy them cheaply.  
So the boy gets taken out to Silvy Vale while his dad is ne-go-ti-ating (Miss Deodov says I have to learn a new word every day. I told her I didn't think there were that many words left to learn. She looked at me very nicely and just told me to do one a day.)

But Karl Lukin heard her and he laughed at me. Bad luck for him we was standing outside the school then, because I picked up a rock and threw it at him. He ducked out of the way, but he stumbled and fell over. And then he offered to carry my books home for me as if he doesn't live two miles in the other direction! I said no.

Yuliah says I was an idiot, because he might not ask again. Izolda laughed and told HER not to be an idiot, because I'm very pretty and somebody will ask me sooner if he doesn't.

Well, I see I've gotten off the subject.  
The city boy came down here and thought he'd relax himself by lying on the soft red carpetty stuff we've got here—he says if it feels as nice as it looks, he'd get his Da to buy some and plant it in the park in Vorbarr Sultana. By now everyone is watching, and he seems to think it's because he's a good looking boy, so he takes his shirt off, even though it's not really warm enough. 

Something must have told him we were laughing at him, because he jumped up immediately—but not quite quick enough. Love-lies-itching is serious about making babies, as Miss Deodov explained to us, and it shoots up those little stickers im-med-i-ate-ly. And he's screaming and cursing, and we're not going to help him, until I decide to. He really was a nice-looking boy. 

So I took him to the pump, and scrubbed him down hard, and told him that he had to get the clothes off quickly or they'd stick more, and he doesn't have anymore clothes, so I sneak him into the house---and nothing, Miss Deodov! I gave him an old, old pair of pants—well I pulled it out from under the dog, and he fussed about it. Well, I told him, it didn't have that many holes in it, and AT LEAST it didn't have any love-lies-itching in it. And he was going to kiss me, but stupid Karl came in the house then. WITHOUT EVEN KNOCKING! I told him he had no manners, but he looked at the rich boy, and the rich boy left. And I never got around to giving him the old shirt I was holding, so everyone got to look at him hanging around half-dressed.

(Oh, alright, Miss Deodov!)

IN THE MIDDLE

The galaxy people weren't nice to us, and they did think we were just stupid hicks, and before we knew it some really bad space people came. In spaceships from some place called Cetaganda. We found out later it was some of those nice space people from Komarr who let the war in on us. But we fixed them. And I hear that the Admiral Count Vorkosigan killed some of the leaders in Komarr, and everyone was all upset with him. But I'm not. How many people did they have die, when they let the war in on us? We lost five million people, Komarr. How many did the Admiral kill? Two hundred, they said. Oh, but they were very important people, so of course their lives matter more, don't they? And ours didn't.

We didn't matter to anyone else. No one in the big, nice, soft galaxy came to help us. Not even Beta, which is where Count Vorkosigan's wife, Countess Vorkosigan, is from. I've heard of Escobar, and it's not as far away as Beta, and they didn't help, either. Which is why we attacked them, next. And poor Prince Serg was killed, trying to make it right for us.

No one came to offer us as much as a gum-leaf to help us fight. They were all afraid, I think, that Cetaganda would come fight them, next. Cowards. This went on for twenty years.

So we did it the hard, hard way, pushing them back by dying. General Count-Vorkosigan-who-was and Emperor-Ezar-who was fought back here in the mountains. It may seem strange to some people that the war came all the way back to us, but Cetaganda took them quicker. 

They have streets—but tanks can move down streets.

They have lights after dark—we have lanterns and candles. But soldiers can move in the night with lights.

They have food, they have warm clothes, they have big buildings—but the soldiers took over these. (I never thought soldiers needed buildings or offices, but when we got a comconsole, I could see why. They could co-mun-ni-cate with their ships, their armies, with anywhere in the galaxy, all through the things they stole.)

They were heartless, cruel people who killed anybody, not just soldiers. They had soldiers who sat on love-lies-itching, or walked with bare feet on bloody puffwad, or anything about Barrayar that pi—Miss Deodov says I can't write that. Not even if I say it peed them off? She forgot and laughed, and then told me no. So—anything they didn't like about Barrayar, that we didn't see fit to tell them, because we were AT WAR WITH THEM—they didn't pick themselves up and ask to borrow some old clothes. They killed villages, whole villages, with horror weapons. Kara Dosie told me they even killed men who wouldn't tell them how to get rid of the stickers—like any man knows women's work.

But as many of us that they killed, others stood up. Boys, and men, and fathers, uncles—grandfathers--my great-granda even wanted to go. And when they wouldn't let them, he swallowed his pride, and said, “Alright then, I'll help the women, belike.” He kept the little children quiet by singing them songs, and teaching them songs, too, which their mothers wouldn't've? --that's not right, is it. Would-not uv? Would not HAVE wanted them to learn. 

“What shall we do with a drunken sailor, what shall we do with a drunken sailor, what shall we do with a drunken sailor, early in the morning?” But they were so glad to see a man still here in the village while so many were dead. So many. 

Please let me leave it in Miss Deodov—I remember my great-grandfather for his songs—I told her I couldn't write anymore right now. And she gave me a piece of hair, a long piece, so I could take with me to the cemetery with mine.

Miss Deodov said I could finish this by writing about Vorkosigan Vashnoi. I'll be brave, then.

AT THE END

Vorkosigan Vashnoi was the capitol of our district. It was an old city, and maybe had half a million people—that's how many Hassadar has these days. But the Cetagandans took it over, and it was a place where they could rest and get more supplies in. 

When the war started, there were very few energy weapons—partly because there wasn't enough power to keep them charged or get new packs. But the people that the Cetagandans put to work as slaves were clever and gradually built up more knowledge about newer weapons. We couldn't use all of them, but the best one we built was a rocket pro-pelled grenade launcher, which finally let us knock things down a bit.

Oh, okay, there were nuclear devices here, and the our armies had more weapons than slingshots, but in the mountains we mainly had rifles. And knives. But even when we didn't have those, Vorkosigan people STILL fought the war. The Cetas were always seeing a poor straggled group in a valley, and charging after them. Then they would find out it was a box canyon, and the way back had been blocked. Big boulders (and we have millions of those, don't we?) were prepared on the top of the hill. Then our little valley group would hide quickly. Boulders don't respond to stunners, and if you hit them with plasma arcs, they mostly break into TWO boulders, still coming after you.

General Count-that-was Piotr and Emperor-that-was Ezar never gave up, and in the end, the Cetas ran away. But they killed Vorkosigan Vasnoi before they did. 

Miss Deodov wants me to use some math here:

I once heard of some boys who found a hand grenade, and it blew up and killed five of them. So how many bombs like hand grenades would it take to kill 500,000 people?

1 grenade =5 people  
10 =50  
100 =500  
1000 =5000  
10,000 =50,000 (and I can't even imagine 50,000 people in a whole city!)  
100,000 =500,000

So they either had 100,000 hand grenades, or, she says, a lot fewer weapons that killed a lot more at once. And their weapons were nuclear, and poisoned the city, and it still glows in the dark. Bastards. Miss Deodov,—okay, she says she'll let me leave it in.  
xxxxx  
After I finished my paper, I still wanted to burn another offering. Karl was waiting for me outside the school and had a rose for me. We held hands as we went to the cemetery.


	3. Haiku Practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haiku practice--to begin the correspondence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and the next chapter were published independently, as "Offering of Letters--Tamo Pamarado and Valda Mishnov" and are being combined with "Offerings of Reflections -Tamo Pamarado and Valda Mishnov http://archiveofourown.org/works/1313821/chapters/2730769

Valda has never written haiku or any poetry and really doesn't want to write to the Ceta girl. Her teacher and Miles persuade her. She knows many people who have talked to Miles, even gotten drunk with him. She knows whom her school was named for, and why. She knows about Mark's butterbugs, and Ekaterin's Glorious Bugs, and has met Kareen. When her aunt was sick they all went to the hospital at Hassadar to wait while she got her stem-cell leukemia transfusion. They saw Cordelia, although they were not introduced, but were introduced to the doctors she had trained who talked about her. Miles gives Valda his comconsole number so that she can write him.

PROLOGUE—HAIKU PRACTICE  
Each girl is preparing test haiku, although NEITHER WILL SEE THE OTHER'S PRACTICE. Miles will, though.

VALDA MISHNOV:

We fought you three times  
We beat you every time  
So fuck off and die

Working on haiku  
Makes me sick to my stomach  
I want to puke now

We have pretty springs  
With a lot of nice flowers  
Please can I quit now?

I like all the flowers  
Like the forsythia here  
They make our spring bright

 

Spring is pretty now  
Yellow forsythia here  
Third line no can do  
HELP!

Spring is pretty now  
Yellow forsythia blooms  
And flowering quince

! 

Yay! It all fits! 

OOOOOOOOOOO

  

Tamo Pamarado hates the assignment to write to Valda. She HATES it. She can only complain to her classmates, and the teacher. No one she knows has ever talked to the Governor of Rho Ceta, but because of this selection she must submit her work to him first. Her creche-monitor is concerned for her, and will help her. Resistance is futile.

TAMO PAMARADO:  
Ten lines of poems  
So savages can meet us  
With retarded minds

Oh be so polite  
And write to the dull hill girl  
The Garden will laugh

I have to chatter  
Celestial Garden commands  
And all must obey

The hill girl will write  
Prettily I will respond  
My master I serve

Emperor commands  
Soft words of greeting to her  
Who lives in the mud

Spring winds gently blow  
As we greet the child envoy  
Whose rose buds are weak

Spring winds gently blow  
Lavender wisteria  
To greet the envoy  
(Adequate)

 

00000

Miles choked up with laughter as he read the practice haiku. He was almost tempted to send the first one on, accidentally, except that it wouldn't be nice to the little girl who was having to write these letters. Either little girl. It wouldn't even be expedient to send it out into wider Barrayaran society, even his family, because the point of everything was to reduce frictions between the Cetagandan Empire and his own.

This was part of his answer to the recent Auditorial problem which Gregor had set before him; how to turn down Ceta-Barrayar politics from their customary low simmer, to as minimal as possible. Gregor had let him know that this wasn't a full time job which he could use to avoid getting another Auditorial problem. And since an Imperial Auditor's job is, 'whatever you say, Gregor,' he'd had a bit of time to tinker.

He'd decided to have an essay contest, and it was his idea to match one of the poorest back-country Vorkosigan district's locales to one of the lesser Cetagandan ones, albeit the one which was closest to Barrayar. The idea was to get good intel, as it were, on what it was like to live in a different planet, some information on those you'd only seen as enemies. So that you might think of them as real people, to hesitate that much longer to make war on them.

Ekaterin came back from a plant-shopping expedition to meet him in their suite, finding him laughing.

“What are you looking at?”

He handed her the letter, plus the practice haiku.

“You're not letting the letter go out like this!”

“Well, no, I was going to correct the spelling and grammar—can't have Fletchir thinking that we are that ignorant.”

“And why is she sending this letter?”

Miles explained his great plan of pacifying Cetaganda one small person at a time. 

“You wanted to have Cetagandan children get an idea what Barrayar is like? Why didn't you ask Lizzie or Taurie to write them? Why are you embarrassing the poor little thing?”

“Did you read her essay? I wouldn't call her a poor little thing. It was her ancestors who shoved the ghem right off the planet.”

“But you made them read each other's essays and then write to each other? That's so--”

“No, no, I didn't let them read each other's essays. Far too much anger. That contest was to determine which contestant was the most eloquent. And Tamo's not an ethereal child, for all she's this Cetagandan ghem; her creche-monitor sent me her notes, too, beside her offerings of reflections.”

Ekaterin read the ghem-girl's mutterings, and imprecations about her ex-boyfriend.

The small rude lichen

Bearing crotyl mercaptan

Repels all who touch

“She read about stink-lichen and tried to make some? In her creche's own lab?”

“Yes. And was at least partly successful. The creche-monitor, whose name is Ratna Tan, is going to help her with all her letters, because the instructor just gave her the blank assignment.”

“But this girl's got to send her letter to the Governor?”

“The haut-Governor, right. Este Rond.”

He had met Rond before on his trip to Cetaganda where he'd stopped the haut-ladies from creating eight metastasizing sub-empires. Rond was unusual for Cetagandans in being heavy in form. A word for him might be bullish, especially if his behavior was considered. Rond wanted to expand Cetaganda's trade access through the Barrayaran controlled Komarran jump points. He might not be happy about the essay contest, or its winners, but he would have to play fair for any of these to succeed. Miles knew that Fletchir Giaja did want the effort to succeed, whatever a haut-governor thought.

“He'll pick over every word until she sounds like a world-class genius. This isn't very fair to the Mishnov girl.”

“Well, I won't pick over Valda's letter except to correct her grammar. The letters are supposed to let them see a slice of the other's lives. That's all. We're just testing the waters. And they won't be released publicly very soon. Fletchir promised me.”

“You're on a first name basis with TWO Emperors, I see.”

“Ummm—yes? Look, I took this up with Gregor and Fletchir both. If the Cetas just try to make themselves sound too superior, they're cutting their own throats. It will be the same old thing, and won't reduce tension. I want to see into those creche-families, plus whatever city it was on Rho Ceta. I've never heard of it. The Cetas may not be curious about us, but I think they are. For one thing, I'm not sure they have pets which aren't unique. We saw, Ivan and I, when we went to the agricultural show on Eta Ceta--”

“I'll bet that's not what THEY called it.”

“Can't remember. It was the ghem-ladies bio-constructs annual bake-off, I guess, with all sorts of weird things, half-animal, half-vegetable. We nearly got blown up by a carpet...long story, long story. BUT the point is that the only animal I actually saw with a child that day...except for some very cute fish bred to display their ghem-clan's stripes, by a twelve year old—I say, I MUST get Tamo to write about her pets...Anyway, the only one we saw with a child was a half-meter tall unicorn. But I'll bet little Tamo and her friends have no idea about animals you can put outside the back door and let reproduce by themselves.”

He shook his head, thinking far back to the time when he was a new Imperial Military Academy graduate and had been asked by his father to hear an infanticide case in Silvy Vale, the back-end of everything in the Vorkosigan district. The Count had refused to let him go up in a lightflyer from Vorkosigan Surleau, but made him take a horse, to show him something as well as the locals. He'd seen the river of runaway roses then, earth roses gone feral and a half-kilometer wide. So different from the runaway roses of another kind, which had escaped from its owner, breeder, and had climbed up Ivan's leg at that long ago “agricultural show.”

His old horse, Ninny, Fat Ninny, had helped them cut along the track to the Vale, chewing up the roses. Ninny had nearly been the victim of the murderer as well, and for many of the Vale's people, the repair of the big cut in the horse's neck was the first introduction to galactic-level medicine. We all serve the Imperium, don't we, he thought.


	4. Conversations with the Enemy: From Barrayar to Cetaganda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valda Mishnov and Tamo Pamarado's first letter exchange. Spring.

Valda Mishnov  
6th grade  
Raina Czurik Primary School  
Teacher, Mina Deodov  
Silvy Vale,Vorkosigan District  
Barrayaran Empire  
TO:

Dear Miss Pamarado,

Well, you know we have to write these letters, and I guess you don't want to any more than I do, and you don't have any choice either.

Okay. My teacher says we're just supposed to get to know each other a little better. She says they don't want us to write about the wars, just about how we are now, and what we are like, and not to call any names (but They'll take the names out if i do write them, and I'll get in trouble).

So anyway, My name is Valda Leona Mishnov, and I am 12 years old. I live with my Ma and Da, and my brothers Demitri, age16, Grigori, age 13 and Erik age 10 and my sister Faina age six.

We live in Silvy Vale, which is a little village in the Dendarii Mountains of the Vorkosigan District. There are about 60 people in the Vale, and about 200 close to us.

I go to the Raina Czurik Elementary school. It goes to 6th grade. My Ma and Da want me to go to more schooling, but I'd have to go to Hassadar, my aunt lives there, it's a very long far ways away—maybe a hunderd kilometers. I can do more lessons with our comconsole at school but the others use it a lot so I cannot use, it very much.

My Ma takes care of us kids, our goats, chickens, ducks, and our cow. They make milk (our goats and cow that is) and my mother makes, cheese, and butter, out of the milk. Then she sells it or trades it for things we want.

And we have a dog, my mother makes him herd the aminalls, his name is Dog-ninny. That's not because he is silly okay he is silly but he is named for our Count Vorkosigan's horse, Ninny. Lots of the aminals here got named for him. Well, this is our second one the first one was a bitch so we were going to call her Bitch-ninny but Ma said we coun'd so we called her Fat Ninny which I think was the horses's name really. (My cousin said.)

And Dog-ninny barks at night if anyone is coming by.

Well that's all my letter.

Sincerely yours,  
(Miss) Valda Mishnov

And this is your haiku:

Spring is pretty now  
Yellow forsythia blooms  
And flowering quince

Oh, and my sister says to ask you if you have a boyfriend and I told her that was none of my business. But I have one and his name is Karl. He is very tall. He kissed me twice. And my brother Grigori asked whether you have to wear the facepaint all the time.


	5. Letter to the Enemy: From Cetaganda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamo's first letter to Valda: Spring

Tamo Pamarado, Ghem family Anah  
1st Form  
Esfahani Installation Pupillar  
Instructor Mir Lahani  
Katsura, Rho Ceta  
Cetagandan Empire

To :Valda Mishnov  
6th grade  
Raina Czurik Primary School  
Teacher, Mina Deodov  
Silvy Vale,Vorkosigan District  
Barrayaran Empire

Spring winds blow softly  
Lavender wisteria—  
Now meet the envoy!

Dear Miss Mishnov,

I am in receipt of your letter. For my education, I was placed in a primer day school in my home city Miyama from age five until 11. In Miyama reside 35,000 persons; in Katsura live 125,000. Miyama is 80 kilometers from Katsura.

So far away  
But all children school the same

I lived in Miyama with my progenitors. I have two siblings. My...half-sister, Instructor Lahani said it would be, is twenty years old and lives on her own; my brother lives with us.

Five year old boy;  
We disagree so often

I live now in my creche. The creche has 10 forms. There are 284 pupils total, thirty each year until form nine and ten. Then there is competition for placement. Only 24 will be placed for form nine, then twenty for form ten. We study very hard for placement.

The creche-families live with monitors, one for the boys and one for the girls. My monitor is Ratna Tan. She has agreed to help me with the letters. We have breaks to go home to our progenitors if we want to—two weeks each term. Pupils in the eighth and ninth forms don't go home at all if they are studying for placement. Monitor Tan tells us not to worry ourselves about that now, but to concentrate on each day. She taught us poems and singing to clear our minds from excitation. For me it is hard.

I will regard the fountain of today—  
Calm now

We have classes for esthetic design, and these are most pleasing. My mother designs flowers for Bioesthetic Exhibitions. They are used decoratively and not competitively, but there are many exhibitions; she is in demand. One exhibition required magenta, azure, and yellow orchids which would snip themselves and then reseal and attach as leis for visitors. This isn't a great problem at all, but the exhibition coordinators gave her only five days for two thousand leis! 

Many in our constellation assisted, for honor. I helped even though I was only five. My sister was thirteen, and she requested leave from her school to help. I followed her directions, cleaning up. She made me a small lei, and my mother flash-preserved it.

My father-progenitor designs sculptural placements. He works mostly with stone micro-mosaics, an archaic styling, but pleasing to ghem who desire small cremation columbarium niches.

To answer your question, the full facepaint of ghem is required on formal occasions—for marriage, burial ceremonies, observed remembrance days and similar. For all others smaller forms are acceptable—half-face is typical for my father. Young ghem sometimes paint only the cheek or eye-circles. Not respectful, my father says.

I did have a boyfriend, but now he is writing poems to another. I have been making revenges.

Also questions for you—since you are twelve, will you be marrying soon? And is it true that you must marry your cousin?

Also, we are not allowed any animals larger than fifteen centimeters. I saw a cow at an exhibition once—very smelly.

Sincerely,

Tamo


	6. Correction of Insults: Barrayar to Cetaganda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamo touched a few nerves: Valda has a lot to say.

Miles had been out all day on another Auditorial assignment—thank god not another committee—but a tangle of land and mineral rights and old politics which involved three Districts. It wasn't like bomb disposal, but you had to follow the red wire and see where it went under the green wires, and so on, before you could snip. He only wanted supper and a chance to play with his children, then go to sleep. Ekaterin stopped him after he'd changed into pajamas.

“There's a comconsole message. It wasn't private—it's from the Silvy Valley girl.”

“Dear Count Vorkosigan, I hate that Ceta girl! She asked if I was going to get married now and if it was true I had to marry my COUSINS!” Valda turned and spat on the ground, making an old anti-mutant warding gesture.

He knew that the conversation between Barrayar and Cetaganda was inevitably going to discuss biology and mutations, but wished it could have come another day. 

“Hi Valda,” he recorded, “This is Count Vorkosigan. I got your call and Tamo's letter.” He paused, tapping his teeth with a stylus. “One of the reasons that we and the Cetas need to talk to each other is because we both have such” (prejudices? Ignorance? Willful lies and deceits?)--”we don't understand each other very well. The little girl”—he stopped. Tamo's letter had been sent with the permission of Este Rond, the haut-governor of Rho Ceta. Either he was ignorant of Barrayaran customs, or wanted to offer a direct insult. It didn't matter. What mattered was that these two pioneers be encouraged to continue their conversation.

Ekaterin would probably have told him not to sow only two seeds, but many at once. For him this was a small scale reconnaissance—but maybe he'd pick a couple more pairs to try if these failed. But this WAS success, really; getting to grips with prejudices was easier if faced to at once.

“Valda, that girl doesn't know she's being insulting, and even if she does, you can answer her question without being angry. Just think of it like it's a question on an exam. Send me your letter and I'll go over it; we'll work it out.”  
He grinned at her—ten years of parenting had taught him something about rewards.

“You are my scout-ship. I need you to go places and learn things I can't go. Nobody else can be there. I'm sending you a sash with a badge on it. We can put on a new badge every time you write a letter.” 

Ready for bed, he saw that Ekaterin had pulled out Tamo's letter and was sitting cross-legged on the bed, reading it. Her hair was loose and poured over her shoulders—still almost all black.

He scooted over to her and lay on his side, admiring the view. She turned to him, eyes excited.

“Miles, this girl's mother is a plant breeder! She had an assignment to produce leis, which must have taken twenty orchids each, and two thousand in five days! Plus the time she needed to work out the initial bioesthetic program. She gene-designed and grew forty-thousand flowers in less than a week! I need to know how she did it. We need this type of technology and they're using it for exhibitions.” She glanced down at him like a cat who's noticed a plump mouse at her feet. “Think how fast we could terraform—can you let me talk to the mother? Soon?” The cat was admonishing the mouse to get busy or else.

“Ekaterin, we need to let them talk a little more. Valda is barely able to speak now, she's so mad. Give it time to work.” 

Her face drooped a bit.

“Okay, even if this thing blows up I'll find you a way to talk to her. Or someone even better.”

They cuddled a bit and then went to sleep. He dreamed of strings of orchids which chased him and climbed up his leg, and of villagers making the old mutant signs. 'go away,' his mind insisted, 'you are the past.' Then he dreamed of two little girls walking up a hill with rows of flower badges on their sashes.

000000000000000  
Dear Miss Tamo Pamarado,  
This is an erxtra letter but I wanted to set you straight. Some of the things you wrote were not very nice.

It's not legal for a girl or boy in Silvy Vale to marry before age twenty without the parents' say-so. It is only legal from 17-20 with the say-so of their parents. A girl can marry younger than that if she's got pregnant, which is not okay if you're not married. A girl who is less than seventeen can be married, But. She has to live with her parents until then. The father has to help with the baby.

The other thing about marrying your cousin I talked to Count Vorkosigan about that because it made me so mad. He said to answer it as if it were a question on a test.

So: We do not marry our cousins. There is too much risk of mutations. The grandmothers starting keeping books about the people in the mountains and how each family is related to another one. You can't marry at all if the book says it's too close. Count Vorksigan didn't know about that, but I told him the grandmothers don't talk about it very much, even to their Count. And the books are kept in Larch Springs and Winterfall, which are two valleys over. I think the only person who goes up to them much is the postman.

The Community Center:

We have built a community center for dances and politics. It's bigger than the school! It will also have a satellite feed, because we got one of those. And a comconsole soon. Anyway, My mother said that with a big place to come, for parties and dances, the more chances there are to meet boys and girls who aren't blood close.

So: that's that. And I'm really really sorry you can't have any pets. Everyone here has a lot of animals which mostly we raise for food, but it's dogs and cats too, and some horses, and they can be nice to talk to when you're really really mad at people. Dogs especially.

(Miss) Valda Mishnov

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters 6-10 have been slightly rewritten since original publication.


	7. Contests and Sailboats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamo's second letter. Summer. Tamo tells Valda about the creche's activities.

Tamo Pamarado, Ghem family Anah  
1st Form  
Esfahani Installation Pupillar  
Instructor Mir Lahani  
Katsura, Rho Ceta  
Cetagandan Empire

To :Valda Mishnov  
6th grade  
Raina Czurik Primary School  
Teacher, Mina Deodov  
Silvy Vale,Vorkosigan District  
Barrayaran Empire

Dear Miss Mishnov,

I regret that my words caused pain. We know so little of Barrayar.

Instructor Lahani desired that I tell you about the activities of the creche. Rho Ceta has only one small ocean, but it has many gulfs, bays, sounds, and estuaries. Rho Ceta has three large moons which cause extreme changes in the tides. One department of the capital exists solely to plot tide marks and levels for the planet. There are storms and hurricanes which propel sea water far across the lands. The ruck have houses closest to the gulf shores near the Installation Pupillar. The Installation lies farther back, one mile away and 400 feet higher than gulf sea level, so we are safer here. 

We walk or take grav sleds to the shore every day no storm occurs. We may take the grav sleds when everyone in the same level has done well the previous day. When there are many failures, we have to walk. Competition is important, of course, but so is the success of all. "A high tide raises all boats," it is said, and for that we must strive, to be a high tide for all. I do not like to walk home uphill, therefore I help as many as I can. I am quite good at my studies in history and speech, and good at poetry.

Did I tell you that haiku have several forms? From your letter it seemed that you might know only one. (My instructors removed several of mine). The oldest form is the 5-7-5 syllable type. A seasonal reference and nature reference are preferred. Your haiku is perfect there. A break in the middle of the second line is also desired.  
Another type of the haiku has two lines with a total of eleven to 14 syllables. This is also desired because the poem can be said with one breath.

Three giant moons ride huge  
Summer storms and hurricanes

 

Water activities are: swimming, diving, and sailing. We fly kites and fight with them. We can catch fish, and send the fish back on a small grav-sled to be cooked. Also, we can run, and practice jumping. A new thing this last year is skating. Haut-Governer Rond has built out a new pier, and also a long boardwalk, where we can skate. I like to skate much better than to sail, because our boat capsized last year and I nearly drowned. Of course I still have to sail.

The boys and girls share the same activities. After puberty when boys' shoulder muscles have become stronger, they have more sports with throwing and sports such as windsurfing. I wish I were good at windsurfing. It must be so free to fly alone above the waters, all by oneself, testing strength alone with the elements.  
We are with each other always. Well, anyway, after exercises and competitions and scoring, we may walk apart to look for shells. I have seventeen olive shells. I put mine back every month so I can have room for more. There was more space alone at my progenitors' home in Miyama. I share a room with three other girls in my sector.

Also, I am again regretful that my words were unpleasant.

I found a picture of a dog through a concomsole. A very small one might be pleasant, a kilogram perhaps. Don't they try to eat you? They have so many sharp teeth.

Sincerely,  
Miss Tamo Pamarado

Four sisters share a room.  
Double moon shadows throw twice.

00000000000

Miles reviewed Tamo's latest letter. As a mountain-and-city-bred man, he'd never lived near any salt water. The Long Lake at Vorkosigan Surleau had its storms, but Rho Ceta, this part at least, seemed alive with water and movement..

More importantly, this was the first glimpse of the lives of the ruck. "Crowd" was one translation, "cattle" another. Ever since his trip to Cetaganda, he'd been aware that non-ghem existed, probably in enough quantities to be the cannon fodder for the wars. The Empire was silent on its internal affairs, resisting diplomatic probing with a beautiful blank face. This was the first glimpse he'd had of non-ghem, and he had to get Valda to ask about them. It was very kind of Tamo to apologize again, even though she was patronizing about her poetry. Maybe he could send her one of Zap's offspring and tell her it was a dog...Rond, Fletchir, and Gregor would all kill him, even if Gregor laughed first.


	8. Summer Breeze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valda accepts Tamo's apology and tells her more about Barrayar.

SUMMER

Dear Miss Pamarado,

My teacher said that I should tell you I accept your apology. I do.(But don't insult us again!--stricken by MVK)

And she also suggested that telling you more about Barrayar might be fun.  
Like I said, I live high in the foothills of the Dendarii mountains. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter, but nice. There are very pretty flowers in the summer—purple and blue lupines, pink primroses, red wine cups, little yellow daises, not the bad itchy kind, but Earth-imported ones. Theyr to attract butterflies and bees to fertilize our crops. And we have roses. Do you have to sell off all your flowers or can you keep them.

In my last letter I dint tell you about my Da. He and my brothers work our farm, we grow grass for hay for the goats and cows, and then vegetables—onions, tomatoes, beans—butter and green, cabbage, kale, carrots, potatoes, lettuces. The farms here are little ones for mostly one family but we grow wheat together so it can be worked in a larger field and then rotated off so the soil doesn't go sour.( It was hard to keep the fields from souring during the war because Cetaganda killed so many men. (stricken MVK)

The men in our valley help to plow the bigger fields together, nobody has an ox, but my uncle has a mule. And Karl's Granda has a mule. So, they all help the boys start out picking rocks out of the field. There are always and always more rocks. It's not easy. But they learn to build rock walls to get rid of them, which, rich people in Hassadar want rocks and walls like that. Very strange, don't you think?

My mother and sister and I work in the gardens and, also the fruit trees. (Theyr from Earth too and can grow in the mountains). We have to get the animals milked every day, and do the butter and cheese. We have a well and we put the cheeses and butter in there for being cool. We don't go to school if we have to work special, and all summer long we have to help harvest. The boys think it's hot, in, the fileds, and 'tis, belike, but we have it hotter in the house. We have to can and preserve all the vegetables and fruits, with the iron stove going.

It's hard sounding, but it's fun because we all work together and sing. And we go to the swimming hole when we need to catch fish but not too fast.

When it's hot we wade in the stream.  
My brother brings his fishing pole  
Our dog splashes water on us  
When he jumps in the swimming hole.

(Why doesn't your poetry ever rhyme?? It sounds so weird but Miss Deodov said I have to make allowances for galactics. Stricken MVK)

When we need to catch fish very fast we take stunner power packs and through them in the lake.

Thunderheads boom  
But hail is all that comes  
Damn it.

Oh, and snow! Of course we have snow. it's the mountains(stupid-- stricken MVK). We have three or four meters a year. It's very pretty the first time, and when there's icicles in the sun. In the winter my Da is a woodcarver for pieces to go to Hassadar—very pretty. I wonder if you would like to see one?

Yours sincerely,  
Valda.  
Oh, and if you like poems and the boy writes them what's the matter with that? If the other one was mean? 

A boy now  
Is worth two more you don't have. 

Poetry!

88888888888

Dear Count Vorkosigan,  
Tamo sounds very rich, with her mother growing all the fancy flowers. Don't you want some rich girl to write her?  
Sincerely,  
Miss Valda Mishnov

888888888888888

Dear Valda,

Please keep writing Tamo. It's an important job.  
( Remember, you are a scout for Barrayar!--stricken GVB  
Miles, don't scare the girl.)

Tamo is not that rich for her planet. The really rich people there, the haut, don't even think about her family at all—the mother has to take flowers to sell, y' know. She's considered a lower class ghem-girl. Boys of the ghem class who grow up to be soldiers can get advancement that way. But the ghem girls have to be married to advance.

( She can't even get to learn archery. Would you like a bow and arrow?  
Stricken by Countess Vorkosigan, she who must be—ouch!)

Sincerely,  
Count Vorkosigan


	9. More about Katsura

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tamo has more to say about her school and life at home.

From: Tamo Pamarado  
To: Valda Mishnov

About the Installation Pupillar:

This is more description of our school's activities. Once I was taken once to aid my mother who had flowers for an artisan store in a haut beach village. The beach there has very tall cliffs—the waves come up high through black rocks and spray like fountains. Beautiful. Many specialty and small artisan stores exist, and the haut (buy much from--stricken--longer words! Mir Lahani )patronize them. The beach at our school is long, flat and muddy, with small waves until one goes far out. But it is deliciously warm and there are colored fish to watch. There may not be so many fish where the waves are harsh.

The physical activities one may learn are judged on the five-fold form, used in assessing all Cetagandan activity.  


Beauty-Strength- Poetry- War (Advancement/Cooperation?--I can't find terms.) Balance  
In my last letter the activities were described without their values:

Windsurfing combines:. (Beauty-Strength-Balance)

Some do it alone, (and I would like to do it alone--stricken Mir Lahani--no isolation!) but it is better “ton” to surf with others in formation—more credit to one. (Beauty—Strength—Balance—Advancement/Cooperation.) From the creche when we walk and run to the beach it is better form do this in groups. (Balance)

Brown sand and red sand  
On our beach—Comic ones build  
Statues with tongues out

Other games (I didn't tell you about--Stricken Mir Lahani--passive voice needed) which are practiced:

Handpatting for girls—(Balance—Poetry(early rhymes)—Advancement.) It is learned very early and in school we start to make it in groups—the longest group wins. This is my favorite. Once we had twenty girls!

Juggling is also practiced from young here, and again, one competes with many people together. Some sing while juggling, which makes it poetry also. (Strength-Balance-Advancement/Cooperation.)

Also gymnastics and acrobatics but these are not pleasing for me. They have the fivefold form, but once I was injured.

I would like archery, (Strength—Cooperation) but only boys; it is not pleasing to me)

The skating has many dangerous moves which are forbidden so we never, ever do them.

0000000000000

Miles read through Tamo's letter twice, then innocently handed it to Ekaterin. He watched to see whether she laughed at the same spots he did. She looked up with bright eyes.

“..we never, ever do them?” How did the instructor and the haut-governor let that go by?”

“My guess is that it was not proof-read by the creche-monitor. I'd hoped for letters like this. The haut-governor missed the little clues about the haut resort village and the two beaches. It's a minute crack in the ghem-haut structure. I hope we can get some more out of her.” He read the letter again.

“I thought this was a getting-to-know-you exercise, not a spy-mission.”

“Of course it's a spy mission. It will always be a spy-mission with the Cetas. We might be able to do both, though. Look, I've never heard of the five-fold form, but I'll bet the instructor suggested writing about it so that the haut-governor could let “war” stay in there!” Frighten the Barrayarans subtly, that's their style. I'm waiting to see what Valda has to say."


	10. Have I Offended You Again?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been four months since Tamo sent her letter, and there's been no return by Valda. Tamo is becoming concerned.

Tamo to Valda:

Dear Valda,

Several months have passed since last I wrote, and I am not in receipt of a new letter. My instructor Mir Lahani said that it shows Barrayarans are lazy and irresponsible. My creche monitor Ratna Tan says there may be other interpretations. You might be too busy in the field to write. It seems as though your life is like our own ruck. (I thought that your count was sending me correspondence from an equal.--stricken RT, and comment from her to Tamo: The contest was to produce winning essays, not to guarantee rank. it may not make as much difference to Barrayarans who have no ghem or haut. Miss Mishnov's essay, although prejudicial to Cetaganda, was well written)

You might have no flimsies or pens, although (I would think--passive voice! RT) it would be thought that your Count--and does a Count resemble a haut, or a ghem? would supply them. Illnesses in your family or your animals may have occurred. Or perhaps I somehow offended again? I request that--no, I ask--that you educate me.

Tamo.

000000000

Der Tamo, 

I'm writin while we'r on t'road t'Hassadar agin. Yes, ther's bin a big probl'm. M'boyfrind, Karl, that i, told you about, he lost a hand fellin' trees with his Da. T' tree fall b'for it were sawed all to, and crushed 'is hand. his Dad got uh tourn'quet on it but twore no use. He'll need a tr'nspla' but it wiil be sev'rl months to grow. He has, to stay in, the hos'tpil there until it's growed, to keep his arm well and clean with band'ge and prepair the bones for the han' and we visit him all we kin. School started agan and I kan't see him evry' w'k i writ 'im but 'jes not t'same.  
Valda

Miss Deodov, Valda's teacher from the Raina Czurik school, frowned. Valda never made this many errors. It wasn't like her writing at all. She turned the letter over.

Dear Miss D, I'm saying my letter to my cousin because I'm staying in Hassadar for this next week with my aunt who lives here. She my cousin, didn't go to school Past the third grade. I know you will correct this and send it to Tamo. Even if she did say we were like her "ruck!" And I'll set her straight about the Vor when I kin.  
Thank you.

00000000

Dear Valda,

On the receipt of your letter I was saddened to learn of Karl's injuries. I write poems that he will be whole again.

The rough tree fell  
A hand was harshly destroyed  
But strength will return.

Flowers bloom in spring  
Summer harvests full. He will  
Come back to you whole.

All the pain was felt  
When the tree jumped. The lost hand  
Will once more be strong.

It is not quite clear why he has to go so far or stay so long. On Rho Ceta there are blank body parts in vaults which may be selected and brought in line with an injured person's immunity very quickly. The hand or body part is sent to the patient's home clinic, and then transplanted in a week when it's large enough. Miss Ratna Tan, my creche monitor, says that I must apologize in advance for any questions or anything I write which may be rude.

We are very honored to have the haut women take care of our injuries. The haut women instruct the high ghem in medicine, surgery, and body care for damages. The haut have built schools for medicine, surgery, and pharmacology, and the research schools for them. There are little clinics such as I described in every town, and the haut women monitor them often. Ghem have been gene-constructed to repel most infections, but the ruck are not. Epidemics spread through them quite often. They are a sickly lot--you would think they would improve themselves--but the haut women are always there to care for them.

Miss Tan says that I must answer your question about the ruck.  
Empire Fletchir Giaja, may he reign in peace and power forever, is owed direct fidelity by eight planets. Then there are allied worlds, but I cannot speak of them. 

Each world has about 1 billion persons, mostly ruck. Ghem are few. Very few are haut.The ruck grow food, make cloth, run machines, yes, and clear brush or trees when necessary. (they do have power saws--why do not your workers have them?--stricken by Mir Lahani) They clean houses and business. The low ghem (such as our family) take their produce and create beautiful and necessary things. My mother's leis and my father's mosaics I have spoken of. My father creates the pattern for the mosaic, and reviews stones that the ruck bring him. Then he gives them directions for how they are to be placed.

Is it not the same with you? A haut or high ghem may have the creation ideas for a new house, and his ruck draw the pictures. Then other ghem study the pictures, choose the workers, and supervise them. Another haut creates the patterns to beautify each home, and others paint them or lay the soft-floors.

The high ghem fight in our wars, but they master? (I do not know the word) the ruck who must obey them. When there is no war, the ghem fight each other, both in blood and in competitions, to maintain power. All ghem compete with each other, unless they make allies to compete in a group. It is an honor to write poems for such an alliance, and ghem compete for this. My father and mother fight fiercely with others for a haut to choose them. If they cannot remain ghem--but that is too horrible to speak of.

I send peace and health  
to the Barrayaran boy.

Tamo

 

00000  
Miles sought an appointment for Gregor, and winced when he was given 6:40 in the morning. Surely it was too early for the Emperor of three worlds to be working. Didn't he ever take a morning off to cuddle Laisa? Gregor's staff had added a selection of teas and chai to the platter on a sideboard, beside the excellent coffee. No one could compete with Ma Kosti's pastry, but the little sausage rolls he selected popped with flavor. He stared at a vid of Gregor's newest art pieces. The artist had used huge spiked wooden poles for the creation of odd, strange shapes. There were about ten in this group. It was a monumental exhibit, to be placed outside the Imperial Art Museum. Sometimes he had no idea how Gregor's mind worked, to enjoy art like this. What was the matter with paintings of waterfalls and gorges, or children playing with their toys? He switched his mind back to Gregor and watched as he read the letter grimly. 

Miles said, "We knew the Cetas had a nearly endless supply of cannon fodder--billions, it seems. But look how the ghem fight even when they're not at war; all kinds of blood sports. With the victors getting wreaths made by Tamo's mother, I'm sure."

He imagined the faceless herd of common Cetagandans, thrown into the maw of the war. At least the ghem fought with them, and didn't hide behind. He'd once learned that the Cetagandan casualties in the wars were 500,000, instead of Barrayar's five million. He'd hoped it put a huge hole in their defenses, but it didn't look that way. 

"I suppose I could allow duels again." Gregor said in a bitter voice. "That would sharpen us, all right. Or maybe bring in, what is it? Cow-fighting?"

"Bull fighting. Competitive paratrooping. Battles of climbing teams on the Black Escarpment. It doesn't matter, Gregor. We're not at war with them now, and we're just now getting an unparalleled view from this girl. Did you catch the main thing?" 

He was angry all over and his skin tingled. Why should it matter how an enemy Empire treated its subjects? Not too long ago Barrayarans couldn't leave their Count's District, no matter how hard he might work them in mines or factories, under what conditions. He hoped he was wrong, but the little girl's innocent letter was too clear. How the hell had Fletchir...? but maybe the system for checking these letters had broken down momentarily. Buried under other paperwork, it may have been accidentally sent on. Who could tell with those striving to be post-human?

"Besides how fast they can grow organs?"

"And the poor sick ruck, who always have the haut women to help them through their epidemics. Conveniently."

"You don't believe...!"

"Yes, I do. It fits with everything we've learned about the Cetas. I think they're sowing infections to study them, and improve the--what did they call it? The full array of the haut-women's little medicine chests. Remember the little virus which nearly turned Bel and me to a puddle of steaming snot? They said at the time it was only one of the haut women's little vials of doom. And they're the ones who provide medical care for the whole Empire! Everyone is so grateful to have the haut women taking care of them--that structure is embedded all through the empire. I knew it had to be something besides getting a haut-wife!"

He thought momentarily of the beautiful haut Vio, she of the cinnamon eyes and chocolate brown hair, who had killed and schemed to get back into the Celestial Garden. But there were other haut-women who worked in the field, as it were, apparently content in their careers.

"The ghem don't want to get rid of the haut--they provide all the medical care, train all the doctors and nurses. I had no idea... We were always told that the haut deal only in human genetics, but no-one said it had to be only by directly selecting genes. The Star Creche takes genomes apart to study them, but I will bet my bottom dollar that the other haut women sample the genome of everyone in their clinics, with an eye to developing the ghem's strength. They're field testing drugs and treatment patterns. Probably causing cancers and then working up new chemotherapy, too. I don't know how they get the genetic improvements inserted--Star Creche secrets again--but I think that's what they do."

"Do you think any of the Cetas suspect?"

"What does it matter if they do? It's only the ruck, the common herd--by God they ARE cattle--who are being affected."

Miles fell silent a moment. It was fall in Vorbarr Sultana, a time for wild storms before the winter's blizzards. Today there was high wind which drove rain almost parallel to the ground. He might lost some roof tiles, or have branches come down. The heating boilers had been replaced last year about this time...he was keeping his mind away from the Cetagandans.

"I think we should thank Valda and Tamo for their help, and have Valda write one more letter. They're getting cosier, did you see? Tamo wrote three haiku for Valda. She, at least, has some human feeling. There have to be others. If I can move up to the high ghem--probably can't get a haut to bend enough."

Gregor gave him a wry look. "I thought you could meet haut-women very easily. That's what you told ME."

Miles flushed. He probably had bragged a bit too much about meeting all the planetary consorts. Plus Rian, Handmaiden of the Star Creche. Beautiful, literally unearthly beautiful Rian whose black hair tumbled to her feet, whose skin was so perfect as to make anyone else's look like bloated bags to carry their muscles... 

"Special circumstances, Gregor. The haut-women of the Celestial Garden aren't committing treason today, that we know of. And how the hell would we ever know! The Cetas are so damn impenetrable. You've got to get Fletchir to let us continue. There must be some common ground we can reach."

He was up and almost spinning in his hyperactive mode. "There could be, oh, comconsole magazines--fashion magazines wouldn't be very controversial. Even Ekaterin and the Koudelkas like those. Hair styles? I don't think I'd like to see Ceta robes on everyone--but don't you think materials and trade could be opened up, if we tried? I've seen some of Valda's father's work, and it is very fine. Very delicate wood carvings. He sometimes carves, just for additional embellishment, tiny cages with balls inside. I don't know how he does it, but he's a brilliant artist. Nothing huge and crude like..." Miles skidded to a stop.

Gregor laughed a little. "Don't you like my new work? My last exhibit wasn't crude."

Miles thought of the paintings built from hundreds of tiny dots of color. There were quite beautiful scenes, if you got far enough back, but close up--it was a mess.  
He decided to keep quiet, sat back down, and picked up another sausage roll from his plate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 10 has been slightly rewritten since original publication.


End file.
